Settle Down, It'll All Be Clear
by Brightness Wordweaver
Summary: A few months after New York, Clint manages to surprise her. Or, how Natasha met the Barton family before the rest of the team did.


A/N: Taking a break from my Firefly/Doctor Who multi-chapter to write in a new fandom. I do not own any Marvel characters. Read and review; if enough people like this, I may write more Avengers stuff!

...

A few weeks after New York, Clint texts her, saying there's something he needs to show her, and is she doing anything that weekend?

Natasha's first reaction is wariness. She's always been, well, closer to Clint than to anybody else at SHIELD, he having been the one to recruit her and stick up for her in the early days when everybody else was still convinced she was going to kill them in their sleep. And New York, the whole Loki incident actually, only strengthened those bonds, despite (or because of) her being the one to take him on when he was under Loki's control.

So it shouldn't be strange for him to ask to do something with her during the weekend, off the clock. But it is, in a way indefinably connected to the rumors that occasionally circulate, that she is in love with Clint or he with her, or both. What she told Loki, that love is for children, is true; she has never even considered looking at Clint in that way. But now she wonders if the same is true for him. After all, he lacks her baggage and may see no problem with the possibility of a romantic partnership with her. So she maintains some boundaries, not wanting something so ridiculous to end their friendship.

Still. There's no reason to assume a worst-case scenario until it actually happens, and it would be a shame to miss a chance for a break because she was overthinking things. So she texts him back, finally, saying she's not doing anything and would love to see whatever he has to show her.

Despite herself, her curiosity is piqued.

...

They borrow a Quinjet to fly most of the way, out to the Midwest, but eventually ditch the aircraft at a small airport and rent a car to complete the trip. Clint says he's aiming for 'inconspicuous'.

Whatever Natasha was expecting, it certainly wasn't for them to end up jolting down a narrow, only-partially-maintained dirt road and pull up in front of what can only be described as a farmhouse. There's actually a barn, not red, but still, and she can hear and smell chickens and other animals, besides some expansive garden patches. She raises one eyebrow at Clint as they scramble out of the rental car.

"You gonna tell me why we're here?" she asks, knowing what he'll say.

Clint chuckles. "You'll find out soon enough." They both head towards the house.

The door isn't locked, and Clint enters without knocking-"I called ahead"-pausing in the entryway to remove his boots with the air of a man accustomed to the space. Natasha pulls off her boots, too, and follows him into the living room in a daze, taking in the well-worn furniture, the toddler toys and picture books scattered on nearly every surface.

"What is this?" she asks softly.

Clint doesn't answer, instead calling out, "Honey! I'm home!"

With those words, Natasha's world seems to skid to a halt, as though someone threw the emergency brake on things making sense. The subsequent appearance of a woman in a flannel blouse and jeans, with long brown hair and a tired-but-happy expression, does not restore any logic to the universe, nor does Clint going up to this woman, throwing his arms around her, and very definitely kissing her on the mouth.

"Have a good drive?" the woman asks.

"Nothing out of the ordinary." Clint turns somewhat, to gesture at Natasha. "Laura, this is Nat. Nat, I want you to meet Laura. My wife."

Yes, now Natasha notices the ring on Laura's finger, and the photos of the two of them on the walls, sometimes with two small children crowded in next to them. She sees, but she doesn't comprehend.

"You're...married?" she finally manages. There don't seem to be words to explain her confusion; she settles for gesturing vaguely with her left hand.

Clint seems to understand, and offers what looks like a reassuring smile. "Laura and I were engaged when I joined SHIELD. I almost didn't, because, you know, things get complicated. Compromised. Fury said he could set things up so she'd stay safe, off SHIELD's records. Well, she and the-"

"Daddy!" A duet of high-pitched shrieks send Natasha spinning around, just in time to see two child-blurs shoot past her into Clint's arms. He laughs and scoops one of them up-a girl no older than two-and ruffles the bigger boy's hair.

Surprise and shock are definitely two of the emotions crashing through Natasha at this moment, as is relief that Clint's not trying to romance her-but there's confusion in there, too (_why_ would he bring _her_ _here_?), not to mention grief and envy and anger and other things she can't name.

Clint seems to read the expressions of whatever-this-is on her face, because after a moment he sets his daughter down, whispers something explanatory to his wife, and then gently pulls Natasha back into the hallway, putting a hand on her shoulder and letting her sag against the wall.

"You okay? Sorry, I wouldn't have sprung it on you like that if I'd have known..."

"It's fine. I'll be fine." Natasha takes a deep breath. "Look, I get why you would want to hide your family from SHIELD. That actually makes perfect sense. What I don't get is why you felt the need to bring _me_ here."

"Um..."

"Because if this is some weird demonstration of trust, or trying to thank me again for hitting you really hard on the head, then there were a lot of better ways to do that besides compromising all of them."

"I do trust you, and I am glad you hit me really hard on the head that one time, but that's not what this is about." Clint took a deep breath. "Look, sometimes it seems like everyone's got _somebody_. Even on the team-Stark and Banner have their kooky science gig, Thor's got a whole planet and that physicist out west-"

"Cap doesn't have anybody," Natasha says before she can stop herself, "and I bet you didn't bring him home for dinner."

"Cap," Clint sighs, "has got a whole separate barrel of issues that he has to work through on his own, and the not-having-anybody is really just a symptom. I can't even begin to help there."

"But you think you can help me with my _issues_ by hauling me out to your secret utopian microfarm." Natasha has a feeling that might've been uncalled for, but she's starting to get angry with Clint specifically now, not just angry in general, and almost wouldn't care except that Clint looks a little hurt.

"You know I know better than to try to fix you," he says, voice lowered. "But you're my friend, and so when I have a good thing, I try to share it with you. And Laura'd been asking to meet you, and the kids love it when I tell stories about work and you're in them. I figured this would be a win-win."

Natasha raises an eyebrow. "Your wife asked to meet your female coworker, who used to seduce and assassinate people for a living."

"Laura gets it. About you and me. She wants to be friends with you, because I am."

Friends. It's a lukewarm, inadequate word for someone she's fought back to back with, who's nearly died for her and for whom she's nearly died herself.

"You don't have to try and share your family with me to make sure I'll watch your back," she says, trying to make herself understood.

He seems to get what she isn't saying. "This is a whole separate thing. Look, Laura's already cleaned out the guest room. If you hate it, you never have to come back. I will warn you, though: the kids'll start calling you 'Aunty' if you encourage it in the slightest."

Natasha laughs in spite of herself. "Okay. I guess I can deal with anything for a weekend."

"That's the spirit." Clint squeezes her shoulder momentarily and then leads her out into the living room again.

...

She does come back, more often than she ever would've thought at first. True to Clint's prediction, the kids do in fact start calling her Aunty Nat.

Laura, surprisingly, does genuinely want to be friends, and although it takes awhile, Natasha starts warming to this new, strange experience of female companionship, something she never had even in the Red Room, surrounded by other girls her age, and certainly never since. Laura knows what Natasha is, what she was, but doesn't treat her like either of those things. Natasha wants, more than anything, to be the person that Laura acts like she already is.

The kids, too, seem to fill some hole in her that she didn't know (or didn't want to acknowledge) was there. She keeps every shaky drawing they make for her, tucked carefully in a file folder, even though some of them don't look like much and Laura says she doesn't have to keep those ones. When Clint tells her they're going to name the new baby Natasha (or Nathaniel), it breaks her heart and heals it all at once.

At some point, Natasha realizes she's become more careful with her life. She still does her job, and does it excellently, including the parts that involve hazardous motorcycle activity and punching bad guys' lights out, but whereas before dying was an accepted occupational hazard, now it's just...not. She'll be staring down the barrel of a gun and think _no, not today, I've got a Barton weekend in a few days, and I'm not going to let some terrorist make me miss that. I'm not going to make Clint tell the kids that Aunty Nat can't come because she got shot in the head._ And then she'll fight harder than ever to make sure she gets out of there alive, and that the guy with the gun to her head does not.

The Bartons do so much for her, more than they know. It makes her feel a little guilty, sometimes, that she doesn't have a way to repay them for all their kindness, because she owes them so, so much. It's not something she thinks about all the time, but every now and then, it'll bother her.

Then one day, she's hanging off a cliff on a world a million miles from home, and the only thing keeping her from dropping is Clint's grip on her wrist. Clint, who has almost died for her on so many occasions, and is so determined to do it for real this time. She can see his children in him; Nathaniel Pietro has his eyes.

"It's okay," she whispers, and it is. Because she finally knows how to repay him, repay all of them, for making her a part of their family. So she smiles.

Then twists away from him, and falls.


End file.
